- Albertsons was ordered to pay $4.3 million to a man who slipped in a puddle while shopping.
- The victim suffered a broken nose and a traumatic brain injury after the fall, Morningstar reported.
- Albertsons denied the injury resulted from the in-store fall and said it was caused by depression.
A jury in Kern Country, California ordered grocery store company Albertsons to pay $4.3 million to a man who broke his nose and suffered from a brain injury after his visit to the store.
A local news outlet first reported on the incident, which occurred in 2016 at an Albertsons in Taft, California.
According to Morningstar, the victim who goes by the name Mr. M., was shopping in the meat section of the store when he slipped on water that had accumulated on the floor nearby. He fell face down and hit his head on the floor and broke his nose as a result.
The incident led Mr. M. to receive medical treatment for his broken nose a week later. No other severe injuries were reported at the time.
Months after the incident, Morningstar reported that Mr. M. complained he was having memory issues and lost his sense of taste and smell. It was later discovered through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan that Mr. M. had a "subdural hematoma."
He subsequently had to undergo surgery to remove fluid from his brain but carried on experiencing symptoms of a traumatic brain injury, the outlet reported.
Mr. M's lawyer Steven R. Andrade of Santa Barbara-based law firm, Andrade Law Offices secured the multimillion-dollar verdict in recent weeks.
Mr. M's lawyers and Albertsons did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
During the trial, however, the lawyers defending Albertsons testified that the brain injury was not caused by the fall but rather by "depression."
The outlet reported that the verdict will allow Mr. M. to relocate back to his hometown where he can live closer to his children.
Last year, a South Carolina jury ordered Walmart to pay $10 million to a woman who underwent multiple amputation surgeries after she stepped on a rusty nail while shopping in a South Carolina store.
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